


Short and Unsweetened

by GracefulDemon



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GracefulDemon/pseuds/GracefulDemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous Ereri prompt:<br/>Levi can’t reach a cleaning product or something off of a shelf, it’s JUST out of his reach. Along comes Eren and easily grabs it. Cue huffy Levi who is not grateful in the least lol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Short and Unsweetened

It was a race against time.

From the five minutes it would take his tea to infuse, he had wasted the first two trying to reach the cabinet over the kitchen counter. If he didn’t hurry, the tea would turn bitter and bitter tea was simply unacceptable.

He tried again (for giving up was not the Lance Corporal Levi way) standing on the tip of his toes and reaching up so vehemently his arm started to shake and his face turned red.

“Gah!” he huffed. It was no use.

There had to be a way. He could jump and quickly grab the honey… with a bit of luck he wouldn’t hit his knee on the counter and break the cabinet. There had to be another way – a more dignified one that wouldn’t end with him sprawled on the floor and the brats calling him  _disastrous old man_  when they thought he wasn’t around. Climb the counter? As if; he would probably crack his head open, contorting himself to reach the jar… then he would carelessly support his weight on it for a second (that’s how his head was supposed to crack, as far as he’d envisioned it) and  _Bam!_  the cabinet would fall on his head and crash on the floor, along with his dignity.

Not only a race against time, now it was a matter of life and death.

Maybe if he crouched on the counter and blindly  _felt_  for the honey jar… this could work, actually.

Decided, he hopped on the counter and slipped his hand through the small curtain covering all sorts of containers with beans, flour, and his precious honey, among others. Now, for the glass one. His hand found it almost immediately, although it was lighter than he remembered. He quickly took it out, prepared to throw a small fit at whoever had dared touch his honey, when he was faced with a half empty jar of flour.  _Ugh…_  not what he wanted. He put it back and noticed there were a lot of glass jars of the same size. Not in the mood to pull out a jar with beans next, he tried to weight them. Honey was fairly heavy.

Eren could not have chosen a worst time to come barging into the kitchen to quench his thirst… and find his Corporal kneeling on the counter with a jar of red beans in hand and his ever stoic expression. It was a vision he wouldn’t soon forget.

 _Well, shit._  The jar fell from Levi’s grip and shattered on the floor, scattering beans everywhere.  _Along with my dignity._

“Corporal Levi…”

He composed himself at lightning speed and climbed down from the counter. “What is it, Eren?” he asked, eyeing his tea. How many minutes had passed, exactly?

“Were you… trying to get something from the cabinet?” he asked, approaching carefully. There was a steaming cup of tea on the counter but the usual honey was missing. “Oh.” With a knowing smile, he reached for the cabinet and grabbed the honey. “Here, Corporal.”

Levi looked from Eren to the honey jar and back at Eren again, and his right eye twitched.

How dare he? How  _dare_  he?  _I am going to kick this little shit_. The threat carried no real weight but his knuckles were white and he was livid. How. Dare. He. Levi could have easily gotten the honey himself. He was doing just fine before Eren showed up. Now the tea had probably gone bitter and even if it hadn’t he didn’t want it anymore. Oh, he wanted to throw a childish fit! How dare he make fun of Levi’s height? Acting all smug because he was ten centimetres taller… the audacity! “What is that for?” he forced the words out.

“I thought you were trying to get the honey, sir.” The stupid and honest smile on his face only increased Levi’s anger, and the way he extended his hand… if he didn’t leave the kitchen immediately, he would scream his rage out. It wouldn’t be pretty.

“I don’t need it.” He turned up his nose and walked away, leaving behind a not so confused Eren.

Where could he go to pull his hair out and hide his face in his hands in privacy?

“Oi, Levi!” Hanji’s voice dragged in its usual singsong tone behind him before she rested her arm on his shoulders. “That scene wasn’t cute at all.”

 _Kill me. Kill me now._  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, four-eyes. Go play with your titans or something.”

“Oh, I will – I can hardly wait!” her eyes glistened “But that scene just now was so entertaining. Not even your ice-cube personality can bring that boy down.” Levi rolled his eyes, but secretly, he was curious about what she meant and he knew her mouth wouldn’t stay shut for much longer (for shutting up was not the Squad Leader Hanji way). “Do you know what he just asked me?”

Levi waited, but she remained silent… with that creepy smile of hers in place. It was getting on his nerves. “Like I give a shit.”

“Of course you do! It’s written all over your face.”

“You’re pushing your luck.”

“Come on, ask me. You know you want to.”

“Hanji…” he warned.

“And he was so adorable!”

“Ah, for fuck’s sake! What did he ask?”

Hanji laughed whole heartedly and held Levi in place, and then with a sickeningly innocent expression plastered all over her face, she spoke. “ _Hanji, how long does Corporal Levi’s tea take to infuse?_ ” and with that, she patted him on the back and walked away, grinning from ear to ear.

Levi blinked. What kind of question was that?

Entering the dormitories, he picked up the journal where he kept important documents and sat on the armchair by the window, facing his bed at the end of the row. Burying his face in these would clear his mind; yes. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, going over the reports of Hanji’s recent experiments with Eren; the last one had been yesterday and in the beginning it had gone well… until they had to rip Eren from his titan and consequently ripped his face off in the process. He shivered at the memory. He didn’t want to see that again.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made him look up. And there he was; Eren, holding a tray with a cup of steaming Earl Grey and a small spoon. He was holding the tray steadily with one hand, and the other was hidden behind his back.

He should have known.

He closed the journal and slid it into the side of the armchair; then he uncrossed his legs, allowing Eren to place the tray on them. He had the same smile he had in the kitchen – the knowing smile that made it all so distressing. Levi grumbled his thanks and picked up the cup.

“Na-ah. You are forgetting something.”

“What?”

Smirking, Eren produced the honey jar from behind his back and leaned closer to Levi’s face. “This will sweeten your afternoon,” he whispered, topping it with a bold move – a soft kiss on the Corporal’s cheek. Then he placed the honey on the tray and walked away before Levi had time to react.

Had he…  _Did he just…_  His face glowed red and he grabbed the jar, glaring menacingly at the end of the row as he stirred a spoonful of honey into his tea. “This bastard… who the hell does he think he is? Taking such liberties… He probably let the tea set for six minutes-” his grumbling came to a halt when he sipped the Earl Grey. Perfectly infused.  _I’m gonna kill him._

He would soon find out that giving up was not the Eren way, either.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this about a year ago on my tumblr, and decided it was time to share it here. If you enjoyed this leave me a kudos. Better yet, leave a review, and make my night!  
> Thank you for reading!


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